James Franco directed ‘The Disaster Artist’ in character as Tommy Wiseau

The film, which dramatises the making of the cult 2003 movie 'The Room', will hit cinemas on December 1

James Franco directed large parts of The Disaster Artist in character as The Room‘s Tommy Wiseau, according to his brother Dave Franco.

The 127 Hours star’s latest film will be released on December 1, with the movie dramatising the making of Wiseau’s cult 2003 classic The Room – which has been dubbed “The Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made”. A trailer for The Disaster Artist dropped back in July.

Franco – who plays the eccentric European filmmaker Wiseau in The Disaster Artist – revealed that in order to get into character as Wiseau he had to sit through hours of pre-production each day, with the end result shocking most people who turned up on set.

“I think it was a weird experience for most people the first time they came to set,” he told Slash Film. “I’d been going through pre-production, testing out the prosthetics, and that was a two or two-and-a-half hour thing every morning, and then I was the director, so I was there before everyone.”

Tommy Wiseau and James Franco attend the premiere of The Disaster Artist at the Toronto International Film Festival

His brother Dave – who plays line producer Greg Sestero in the film – added that Franco was so unrecognisable on set that it felt like Wiseau himself was directing proceedings.

“After a while, we would sort of get used to it, but there were so many cameos in the movie where every day a new person would show up, and we’d kind of have to prep them,” he recalled. “We’d be like, ‘So, you’re not going to be around James today…'”